Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Big Book of Happy

My friend Lisa gave me this book, and I'm completely in love with it. I'm always trying to come up with cool, QUICK AND CHEAP ways to keep my child engaged. The TV becomes a #1 go-to item in our house. There are two reasons this bothers me, 1. I do not want my child to be a couch potato and 2. the novelty of the TV is diminished when it is on all day long.

The reason I REALLY love this book is that most of the games and activities are something that you can put together quickly, you are reusing products in your home, and you can also dispose of or dismantle instead of accruing more toys that inevitably your child will tire of leaving them only one option, to act as agents of mass destruction to the underside of adult size feet.

One example from the book that I really love: Using paper grocery bags as a canvas for water footprints that evaporate quickly to keep the fun going and it holds a small child's attention for at least 20 minutes I've discovered. I'm so in love with this activity because I do not have to worry about finding room in my daughter's toy box. I put my gladware container of water up and I recycle the bag!

Obviously, recycling and reusing is a personal goal that I'm not near as active as I would like to be. And I'm chronically forgetting my reusable grocery bags and I find kitchen cabinets overflowing with plastic bags that I refuse to throw away. For some reason my cat's litter box needs just can't keep up with my grocery bag collection.

Most of the concepts in the book are very simple ideas that you want to bonk yourself on the forehead for not thinking of yourself. But hey, I'm fine with letting some else come up with the ideas sometimes. That's why K and I started this blog, give people ideas from our heads!

1 comment:

Good idea! I will be needing lots of the now that Savannah will be back in school on Monday. I like all your vinegar ideas too. I just found out that it works as a weed killer, but I haven't tried it myself yet!